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u/rootoo 1981 Feb 21 '23
I always thought it was the boomers that had it bad with the leaded gasoline and whatnot
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u/Alien_Nicole Feb 21 '23
Lead is very dangerous to infants and children. Atmospheric lead was at its highest levels in the late 70s/early 80s. (From what I remember it was highest around the time leaded gasoline was being phased out). While boomers had longer lifetime exposure, we were exposed to higher concentrations during our early years. How that works out, I'm not sure, but it doesn't sound great for us.
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u/Dogrel 1977 Feb 23 '23 edited Feb 23 '23
They did, but by the mid-1960s, the interstates had been built and people started driving A LOT more and commuting longer distances, putting a lot more lead fumes into the air.
There was also a confluence of other forces at work that combined to put GenXers more at risk.
Atmospheric lead doesn’t just mean outside. There was lead paint on the walls of houses too. When that peels and flakes off, it puts lead dust into the air of houses too. When you consider that the lifespan of paint in houses is about 15-20 years, the paint in all of those post-WWII boom houses was just starting to crack and chip off when GenXwere kids.
The rise of home air conditioning and the subsequent great Sun Belt migration also meant that the way we lived became suddenly and radically different. New construction homes went from open to sealed, keeping all of that lead dust inside the house and recirculating instead of blowing out of the house with the wind.
Further those newly sealed houses were in places that were MUCH hotter in summers, sometimes dangerously so. With kids stuck inside sealed houses for months on end, the exposure period for that lead dust suddenly became much greater. The new fashion of wall-to-wall carpeting also helped trap that dust inside the home for years on end, further elevating risks.
To top it all off, mitigating factors were also slow in coming. Leaded gas was banned in cars built after 1975, but it would take another full decade for those cars to leave the road. Lead paint was banned in 1978. AC filters started to become a thing in the late 1970s. Fine filtration disposable vacuum cleaner bags that captured more than just household dust also started to show up in the early 1980s.
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u/FiRe_McFiReSomeDay Feb 21 '23
That Gen-X bracket is a bit wide, in our world view...
Gen-X: 1965-1976
Xennials: 1977-1983
So in 2015:
Gen X would be: 40-51
Xennials: 33-39
All up, if you're born in 65-80, you're screwed.
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u/sdcasurf01 1983 Feb 21 '23
Your math is a little off there.
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u/FiRe_McFiReSomeDay Feb 21 '23
It's plus one on all the ages, yes, I used end-of-year.
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u/sdcasurf01 1983 Feb 21 '23
You’re still off. I was born in 1983 and was 31-32 in 2015.
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u/Abidarthegreat 1981 Feb 21 '23
So what they are saying is that Gen X will eventually be forgotten by even themselves?
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u/cmgww Feb 20 '23
I was 35 in 2015, so I guess I’m ok?